Back before the advent of cooking, our early hominid ancestors probably spent a lot of time chewing. And according to a new study published today (August 17) in Science Advances, they likely expended copious amounts of energy doing so. So much energy, in fact, that it may have shaped the evolution of the early human musculoskeletal system, scientists say.
The study doesn’t delve into the fossil record. Instead, researchers carefully measured how much energy humans burn by chewing, finding that chewing an odorless, tasteless gum elevates the body’s metabolic rate by 10 to 15 percent above baseline.
“As far as I know, this is the first study that’s ever looked at the energetics of chewing,” says Peter Lucas, an anthropologist at The George Washington University who was not involved in the study but gave feedback to the authors on an earlier draft of the manuscript. “And it really needs to ...
